Herbs for ADHD

by Dr Norman Swan

An eight-week study of St John's wort for ADHD suggested the herb was safe, but no more effective than a placebo.

23 06 2008

Some parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – ADHD – resort to alternative therapies. Sometimes it's because the children have had side effects from medications; sometimes it's because mums and dads don't like the idea of their child taking medications and would like to try something that seems more natural.

The trouble is that you can't have things both ways. Regardless of whether a treatment is herbal or mainstream, if it's going to have an effect on the body, there will be side effects too.

So it's just as valid to test herbal preparations to see whether they work, so that people know the balance between benefits and risk – especially when we're talking about children.

Researchers in the United States have conducted a small trial in children and adolescents with ADHD using the herbal medicine St John's wort. St John's wort is known to have effects on chemical messengers in the brain.

Over a period of eight weeks, though, no improvements were found in comparison to placebo in the usual scores of behaviour used to diagnose and monitor ADHD.

Interestingly, and reassuringly, there were no differences in side effects either, suggesting that in the doses used, St John's wort appeared safe – safe, but probably useless.